Scientists call for transparency on disease

Livestock farmers should be made to tell buyers about whether they have problems in their herds such as Johne’s Disease or Infectious Bovine Rhinotraceitis (IBR), according to scientists.

A team from Warwick University has concluded that buyers of stock should be given more information about any known disease risks.

The team, working as part of the UK Research Council’s Rural Economy and Land Use programme, said that better information to buyers would be the key to tackling endemic diseases which have a low political profile.

While the diseases cost farmers money and caused welfare problems, there was not enough of an incentive to tackle them properly, the team claimed.

The scientists concluded that if providing details of the incidence of the disease was compulsory it would drive down prices of those animals most likely to be a risk.

Professor Graham Medley who led the research said: “In order to eliminate any disease of livestock, there has to be collective effort and that requires some compulsion. 

“Otherwise there will inevitably be some farmers who freeload – enjoying the benefits of reduced risk to their own herd, but not contributing either financially or in terms of effort.”

Prof Medley said government could exploit market forces as an incentive and better information would be an efficient means of doing this. 

“If we could eliminate the philosophy of “caveat emptor” [buyer beware] and employ prices as an additional tool in the armoury against livestock disease that would be a very positive step forward,” he said.

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